Tuesday, December 27, 2005

2005 is wrapping up soon. It's been a quite nice year for me and I've managed to read a little more this year. Here's an update on the

A Brief History of Nearly Everythingby Bill BrysonThe Art of Travelby Alan De BottomBlinkby Malcolm GladwellA Walk in the Woodsby Bill BrysonNotes from a even Smaller Island by Neil HumphreyThe Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-timeby Mark HaddonHarry Potter and the Order of Phoenixby J.K. RowlingHarry Potter and Half-Blooded Prince by J.K. RowlingLast Chance to Seeby Douglas AdamsNotes from a Small Islandby Bill BrysonThe Wild Sheep Chaseby Haruki Murakami- Started and stopped reading. Wierd combination of using Japanese grammatics with the English language. Will resume reading later.Rubbish: A Chronicle of Wasteby Richard Girling- Started and stopped reading. Introduction chapter on the history of waste provides a detailed insight in the medieval times but is somewhat lenghty and boring. Yawn! Will resume reading later.Life of Piby Yann Martel-Started and stopped since 2003. Will resume reading later.Deception Pointby Dan BrownThe Pianistby Wadyslaw SpielmanFantastic Book!French Women Don’t Get Fatby Mireille Guiliano- Application book. No rush to finish reading if there's no applicationThe Time Traveler’s Wifeby Audrey Niffenegger - Reading now.The Shadow of the Windby Carlos Ruiz ZafonTo Kill A Mockingbirdby Harper LeeTuesdays With Morrieby Mitch AlbomFreackonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steve Levitt - Loaned to Jai. Will pick up again later.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Do you know difference between these words before you use these words to lash out at someone?

According to British legal stature, an idiot is an individual with an IQ of less than 20, an imbecile has an IQ of between 20 and 49, and a moron an IQ between 50 and 69. Cretins are specifically persons with a deformity or mental retardation caused by a thyroid deficiency; cretinism is now more commonly called hyperthyroidism. Idoit isderived from the Greek for "private person" (as in idiosyncracy); moron is from the Greek for "foolish"; imbecile is a construction from a Latin phrase meaning "without a stick"; cretin comes, via the French, from the word "Christian" and implies a holy person - God's fool" as it were.

Many of us read for one reason or another. To entertain ourselves, to past time, to enrich our knowledge and so on. A few days ago, I stumbled into Mortimer J. Adler's book, How to Read a Book. After comparing his recommended list of books to mine, I realized that most of my books are not brain challenging for me as these easy read onl provide a form of entertainment during my idle time. I think I should try to read at least one of his recommended titles. Homer would be a good pick. I took a copy of Homer's Odessy and plunged myself on a nice couch. While flipping and skimming through the pages, I felt nervous, fear and confuse. Nervous because I'm not used to such writing style, fear because thick pages suggest a long torment and confuse because of the inter-relating web of relationships and places. /* Sigh! */

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Superman is a comic strip character created by Siegel and Schuter during the 1930s. The character first appeared as a comic strip in Action Comics in 1938. Superman's debut success was followed on by decades of ongoing popularity based on the numerous comic books, animation films, tv series and even movies made on this character. Able to fly faster than an aeroplane, stop a speeding train on track, leap from tall buildings are just few feats Superman is capable of. When we call someone as a superman woman, we are implying that he or she is capable of doing much more than an average person, possesses more mental and physical power or much more stamina.

Surprisingly, years before Superman was created Siegel and Schuter, an 19th century German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, invented the term Ubermensch, which literally mean Superman and which he applied to a hypothetical human being of superior intellect and morals. One of the common misconceptions of Ubermensch is that it is equivalent to the ideals of Nazism. The concept of racial supremacy or antisemitism is absent in Nietzsche.